In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle goes beyond the nature versus nurture debate and digs into the science of skill-building to answer the question, “Where does great talent come from?” Based on his research, he concludes that with proper practice, motivation, and guidance, anyone can take advantage of their biology to build and maintain talent.
In this guide, we'll explore Coyle's findings in four parts:
Throughout this guide, we’ll also connect Coyle’s ideas and strategies to other leading insights in personal growth, education, and psychological research.
In trying to pinpoint the source of talent, Coyle discovered that talent isn't something you’re born with—it's something you develop over the course of your life. Specifically, talent is directly proportional to the amount of myelin (fatty, speed-enhancing nerve insulation) in your brain: The more you work on growing your myelin, the more talented you become.
In this section, we’ll first describe what myelin is and its function in the brain. Then, we’ll explain why Coyle argues that myelin is the key to extraordinary talent.
The Nature Versus Nurture Debate
Coyle’s argument that talent isn’t something you’re born with is part of a longstanding debate about whether it’s your genetics or your environment—“nature” or “nurture”—that determines your fate.
Arguing for the “nature” side of the debate, the 1994 book The Bell Curve asserts that genes are primarily responsible for a person’s intelligence and that the intellectually elite naturally rise to power in the United States. This argument echoes statements by Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson (who co-discovered DNA) and by prominent psychologist Arthur Jensen—who concluded that racial differences in American children’s test scores were attributable to genetics, rather than circumstances. These views drew fervent criticism for suggesting that Black Americans were intellectually inferior to whites.
In 2003, psychologist Eric Turkheimer proposed an important caveat to the nature argument: He concluded that DNA determines a person’s potential, but that their environment determines whether they reach that potential. Author Malcolm Gladwell builds on this principle in Outliers—which elaborates on his New Yorker article disputing the controversial idea that a person’s intelligence is tied to their race. Like Coyle, Gladwell argues for the nurture side of the debate.
All of our thoughts and actions are the result of electrical signals being transmitted across networks of neurons (or nerve cells) in the brain. Within this system, myelin—a layer of fat and protein—forms a sheath around the axon (stem) of each neuron. This myelin sheath acts as insulation that prevents electrical signals from leaking out of the pathways between neurons—thereby increasing the signals’ speed and strength. A highly-myelinated neural pathway is able to execute commands from your brain (for example, a command to pitch a fastball) more efficiently than pathways with less myelin.
When you repeatedly activate a neural pathway by performing a particular action over and over again, you send a signal to your brain that that pathway is important. It responds by increasing the amount of myelin encasing it. In other words, the more time you put into practicing an action, the more myelin you’ll build around the corresponding neural pathway.
(Shortform note: Coyle explains myelin’s role as an insulator that prevents leakage of the electricity traveling across important neural pathways. However, he doesn’t go into detail on the other essential role that myelin plays: making the signals move faster. An axon with a myelin sheath around it has gaps in the sheath called Nodes of Ranvier; as electrical signals jump across these gaps, they recharge. In other words, the presence of myelin creates a structure that “signal boosts” electrical signals as they move, decreasing the time it takes them to travel from the beginning to the end of a circuit.)
Coyle argues that what we perceive as “talent” is largely the ease of execution that naturally comes from making a skill’s neural pathway as efficient as possible through myelin growth. Coyle explains two ways that an efficient, highly-myelinated neural circuit shows up as talent.
Impulse speed is the speed of communication between your brain and body—you can think of it as the reaction time between thought and action. By preventing leaks along your neural pathways, myelin boosts the speed of the electrical signals your brain uses to communicate with your muscles.
In application, this allows you to make decisions about what to do—and move in accordance with those decisions—very quickly. This often can give you a competitive edge. For example, a boxer with increased impulse speed can quickly judge where his opponent’s fist is going to land and duck out of the way.
(Shortform note: In Relentless, Tim Grover explains the importance of impulse speed in athletes at the top of their field. He says that athletes who have mastered their skills can use their knowledge instinctively—they can react quickly to any situation without having to pause and deliberate. They can also remain calm in any circumstances, because their mental space not spent on decision-making can go toward finding flexible and creative solutions to problems.)
Once a neural circuit becomes supercharged with myelin, the movement associated with it becomes “effortless” or “automatic”—that is, you don’t have to concentrate on it to the same degree as you would a brand new skill. This is called automaticity.
When you see someone performing a skill well, you might comment on how natural their movements look. Coyle explains that their actions seem effortless because of automaticity—a highly-myelinated neural circuit is sending commands for the actions without the person’s conscious input or deliberation.
(Shortform note: While automaticity has a significant role in a task seeming “effortless,” it’s not the only factor—often, a skill feels most effortless when you’re able to achieve a “flow state” in performing it. This state combines automaticity, complete immersion, energized focus, and enjoyment.)
You’ve learned that you create myelin when you fire a specific neuron circuit repeatedly. But there’s a catch: To build myelin, this repetition has to be challenging. Coyle calls this challenging repetition deep practice. (Shortform note: We’ll refer to it as meaningful practice, so as to emphasize the importance of it being challenging in a meaningful—that is, myelin-growing—way.)
In this section, we’ll explain the importance of meaningful practice to myelin production and describe Coyle’s four recommended methods for engaging in it.
Meaningful practice, according to Coyle, is an intensely focused, targeted repetition of skills at the edge of your ability. It should be doable, but push you just beyond the limits of your current skill set. In other words, you aren’t simply repeating an action you already know how to do well—you should be struggling to perform the action. This “development zone,” the state of struggle between an action you know well and what you want to achieve, takes concentrated effort and focus. You’re working on a skill that’s new to you and therefore doesn’t come naturally.
Crucially, Coyle notes, in the development zone, you will repeatedly make mistakes and correct them. This is essential because you build more myelin when you make mistakes. He explains that struggling and making mistakes when attempting a certain action signals to your brain that your current neural connections controlling the action are suboptimal. It responds by reinforcing these connections through myelination.
(Shortform note: Coyle’s discussion of the “development zone” aligns with the educational psychology concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD). The ZPD—the gap between what a student can and can’t do on their own—is the key focal point for achieving a task’s next level of mastery. Lev Vygotsky, the psychologist who developed this concept, emphasized that a student needs three components to learn: supportive activities that carry the student to the next level; social interaction, including dialogue and collaboration; and a knowledgeable coach or teacher. As we’ll see through the rest of this guide, these criteria align closely with Coyle’s elements of meaningful practice, impassioned motivation, and coaching.)
You might think of meaningful practice as mental weightlifting: You have to lift increasingly heavy weights to build up your muscle. If you were to repeatedly lift small, easy weights, your muscles wouldn’t grow and you wouldn’t become stronger. In the same way, you must practice increasingly challenging skills to build your myelin. If you practice an easy action repeatedly, your myelin won’t grow and your skills will plateau.
Why Meaningful Practice Is So Effective
Meaningful practice is more effective than mere repetition because it challenges homeostasis—the level of stress or exertion to which your body is accustomed. The principle is well-understood by physical trainers: To make progress at the gym, you need to exert your muscles and cardiovascular system to the point where your body can no longer maintain homeostasis. Once this happens, your body adapts to reach homeostasis at a new level and will change in ways that enable you to run that extra mile or lift that extra 50 pounds.
The same principle applies to the human brain. The more you push yourself, the more the structure and chemistry of your brain will adapt to meet the new challenges. Of course, just like in the gym, you can’t push yourself too hard—that will only lead to burnout. But by forcing yourself to go just beyond your comfort zone into the development zone, you can begin to trigger remarkable structural changes.
Now that you know the importance of meaningful practice, how do you go about doing it? Coyle outlines four methods for practicing meaningfully: chunking, staying attuned to flaws, condensing, and committing to repetition.
“Chunking” is a method of memorization that takes advantage of your brain’s limited memory capacity by breaking down large sequences of information into manageable pieces, mastering each of those small pieces, and building them back into the original sequence. Chunking can be broken down into three steps:
1) Make a mental model of what you are trying to achieve: Review, in full, the skill or action you’re trying to learn. For example, if you’re working on a new piece of music, listen to a master play the entire piece. If you’re trying to nail the perfect tennis backhand, watch a professional making the movement from start to finish.
(Shortform note: Why does making a mental model of the ideal end product contribute to meaningful practice? Turns out, when you visualize yourself performing an action, you activate the parts of your brain involved in the action and fire electrical signals between the thought and action parts of your brain. This helps you “warm up” your brain to do the action correctly and contributes to the myelination of the circuits related to the action.)
2) Break the desired skill down into its individual components: Identify the individual key elements of the skill, then practice each one separately. After you’ve mastered each element, gradually connect the elements together—mastering increasingly longer sequences until you’ve built back the entirety of the desired skill.
For example, learning a new piece of music might look like identifying key parts of the song: the intro, verse, chorus, and bridge. You might first focus on the intro, breaking it down even further into its individual measures. Then, build it back up—master each measure, start playing two measures together, then three—until you can play the entire intro. Do the same with each part of the song until you can play it in its entirety.
(Shortform note: In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin notes that in addition to helping you deliberately build up to mastery, incremental skill-building also enables your unique style to emerge. When you intuitively understand the elements of a skill and their interrelationship, you can combine them in creative ways. According to Waitzkin, you must honor your personal style if you want to become truly great. That means developing your skill according to what most inspires you so that you come to embody that skill as only you can.)
3) Decrease the speed: Coyle argues that repeating your desired skill at a slow speed will increase your precision because it allows you to pay closer attention to mistakes and truly understand the nuances of how all the elements fit together.
(Shortform note: Slow practice is a standard approach to learning in the field of music. But this method has become somewhat controversial among experts in music performance and education. They note that slow practice may actually be teaching you “slow habits” that are difficult to ramp up to full speed. They argue that it’s easier to practice at a faster pace and improve your accuracy later.)
Coyle emphasizes that while practicing, you must remain intensely focused and attuned to the differences between your actual skill and your ideal skill. This allows you to quickly identify when you’ve made a mistake.
When you notice a mistake, Coyle explains that you shouldn’t just make a mental note of it and continue practicing. Instead, stop and compare your mistake to the ideal performance of the skill to identify what precisely needs improvement. Then, repeat the section again and again until you get through it without making any mistakes. This repetition of a difficult section will build up the myelin associated with the skill until you achieve automaticity.
Effectively Using Your Mistakes for Learning
Coyle explains that noticing your mistakes is the first step to learning from them. But what’s the most effective way to ensure that you’re turning your mistakes into improvement?
In Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed gives a four-step process for learning from errors:
Take action using your current knowledge. Start practicing that habit you’ve been thinking about (for example, beginning a daily 30-minute morning cardio session).
Observe how things go and gather data. You might keep a simple log in which to reflect daily on how you feel after your workout.
Note any mistakes and analyze what went wrong. Maybe you missed a day, and you notice it was because you were tired from staying up too late.
Use your data to make a simple, actionable change. Incorporate the feedback into your next action. In the above situation, you might adjust by turning your phone off at 9 p.m. to avoid late-night use.
Coyle recommends condensing your practice: Imposing constraints on the practice of your desired skill to make it more difficult. These self-imposed constraints increase talent efficiently because they create numerous new challenges: As you repeatedly work on developing your skills to overcome these challenges, you quickly build myelin. When you apply the highly-myelinated skills you built to the “real world,” you’ll perform even better, since the real-world application is less challenging than the condensed practice you’ve been doing.
(Shortform note: Research supports Coyle’s suggestion to condense. They show that, contrary to popular belief, constraints aren’t always stifling—they can actually increase productivity and innovation by fostering focus and motivation, and by helping you think outside of the box.)
For example, Coyle highlights the practice of Brazilian futsal—a popular but challenging version of soccer that uses fewer players, a smaller court, and a heavier ball. Futsal creates a condensed environment that increases the number of times a player touches the ball, makes decisions, and corrects mistakes. Coyle explains that this is the secret to why Brazil produces the world’s best soccer players—playing a regular soccer game is easy compared to playing futsal.
(Shortform note: Many futsal organizations mention Coyle and The Talent Code on their websites as evidence for why futsal is the perfect practice for developing soccer skills. In the book, Coyle provides a case study of an English coach bringing futsal to the UK with astounding results. Since the publication of The Talent Code, futsal has spread internationally—the USA’s first professional league was founded in 2016, and futsal made its first appearance in the Olympics in 2018.)
Coyle emphasizes that repetition, not just challenge, is necessary to your myelin—and talent—development. Remember: The amount of myelin in the brain is directly proportional to the hours of practice you put into a skill. The more you fire a circuit, the more myelin your brain will build around it. He says that psychologists who study expert performance have noted that a master in any field is the result of 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of committed practice.
(Shortform note: Be aware that there is a limit to how much meaningful practice you can do in a day. Anders Ericsson, author of Peak, explains that most novices can only accomplish about an hour a day of focused, meaningful practice. Experts who have extensive experience can train themselves to practice meaningfully for up to four hours, but rarely are able to exceed this.)
Making Myelination More Effective
Other authors focusing on the concept of meaningful practice offer numerous strategies that you can use alongside Coyle’s suggestions to make your practice more effective.
Limit distractions: In Deep Work, Cal Newport finds that distraction changes your brain on a molecular level by interrupting myelination. Newport explains that in environments of deep focus without distractions, myelination seems to be more effective.
Practice retrieval: The authors of Make It Stick note that most people think that reciting or re-reading new information is the best way to commit it to memory, but that’s not the case. Instead, they explain, the most effective way to improve retention of new information is through retrieval practice—any exercise that requires you to recall what you’ve learned (like a quiz). The harder your brain has to work to retrieve information, the more firmly it’s cemented in your memory.
Interleaving: In A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley discusses the concept of “interleaving”—when multiple kinds of problems are mixed together in review, such as in a cumulative math test in which consecutive problems are drawn from different chapters of the book. Interleaving requires learners to analyze each problem before determining how to solve it, which engages their abstract, strategic mindset. This is more difficult than it would be if all the problems of one type were “blocked” together, but it vastly improves retention.
Space your study: You will retain more knowledge if you study in short, frequent practice sessions evenly spread out over time—forcing you to recall information. Use longer intervals as you get better at retaining the information in order to keep recall difficult, and eventually you’ll remember it indefinitely.
As we’ve seen, meaningful practice takes significant time, patience, and effort. What would motivate someone to commit to this difficult work for years, or even for the rest of their life? Coyle found that this level of commitment requires a special type of motivation called impassioned motivation. In this section, we’ll discuss what impassioned motivation is, what triggers it, and how it contributes to building talent. We’ll also explore what happens when this type of motivation is applied on a community-wide scale.
Coyle describes impassioned motivation as the “why” that inspires someone’s long, difficult commitment to building talent: Passion sparks their desire to achieve, and motivation fuels the hard work and perseverance necessary to reach a long-term goal.
(Shortform note: In Grit, Angela Duckworth explains that in the context of personal growth, “passion” isn’t enthusiasm (as many people think), but rather endurance. She argues that it’s less about the intensity of your commitment to your goals and more about the consistency of your commitment.)
Impassioned motivation doesn’t appear out of nowhere. Rather, Coyle argues, it builds from the environmental signals you receive throughout your life—messaging about what is “valuable” or what’s expected of you. You pick up on these messages, often subconsciously, and use them to inform who you aspire to be.
Coyle argues that an “aspirational self” built from your environmental signals produces two factors essential for sparking the passion and motivation necessary for you to commit to years of meaningful practice:
(Shortform note: The desire to align with what’s valuable and expected in your society in order to belong to your social group is an innate human need. It enabled our ancestors to survive and has been passed down to us through evolution. This is why the desire to belong to a high-achieving group is so motivating—it’s a hardwired need that touches the very core of who you are and how you relate to others.)
For example, if you’re a soccer player who grew up in an environment that highly values a couple of local players who made it big, you’ll likely have a desire to belong to this valued group. And, because the stars were once playing in the same local leagues you’re in, you know it can happen with hard work and commitment. Likewise, if you studied physics at a school that lauds its Nobel Prize-winning graduates, you’ll internalize a desire to join their ranks.
Does Believing in Yourself Really Matter?
Coyle’s second motivator of belief is just as important as desire to belong. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the way that belief in your abilities can create self-fulfilling prophecies. He explains that children who believe that they’re bad at something will never practice it—therefore, they’ll never improve at it.
Meanwhile, children who get attention and praise from teachers and parents believe that they’re talented and smart, so they act as if they are. This leads them to practice—and develop the talent or intellect they believed they already possessed.
According to Coyle, impassioned motivation doesn’t just drive individuals toward the commitment necessary to developing exceptional talent. Applied to a group—such as a school, town, or family—impassioned motivation can create an epicenter where numerous people develop extraordinary talent.
Coyle notes two sources of impassioned motivation in groups: a breakthrough talent and competition and collaboration.
As we discussed in the section on individual impassioned motivation, seeing others achieve greatness can be highly motivating. This doesn’t just work on the individual level, though—this is often a driver of “talent epicenters.”
When one person in a community develops extraordinary talent and gains fame, she sends a key environmental signal to her community: Someone “like them” or from their background can succeed. This sparks impassioned motivation within the community—members showing a desire to join her ranks and a belief that they can.
Coyle explains that this is why, in his research, he often found cases of one breakthrough talent finding recognition—and then seven to 10 years later, many others from the same community following suit.
(Shortform note: According to research, exceptional success within your community can be motivating because it piques interest and curiosity. First, because the success is “close to home,” it’s more interesting than a success that’s not related to you in any way. Second, seeing someone from your background succeed prompts you to ask questions to understand how they did that—setting you up to follow similar steps.)
Coyle notes that another contributor to talent epicenters is continuously-present challenge. Often, groups of exceptionally talented individuals are found in environments where they are constantly exposed to each other’s talent, so they both collaborate and compete with one another.
In this type of environment, group members are driven to prove their belonging among the high-achievers, repeatedly rising to the challenge of meeting the talent and ability of their competitors. In other words, their environment creates consistent, challenging repetition at the edge of their ability.
(Shortform note: This upward spiral of competency, where each opponent provokes the other to learn and grow, demonstrates a virtuous cycle: a feedback loop where each element positively benefits the others. So while having a ferocious rival may feel like an obstacle to your success on the surface, they’re in fact a huge part of what drives your growth. The heights of any discipline grow through competition; without that back-and-forth, the skill would stagnate.)
Creating a Culture of Talent
In his later book The Culture Code, Coyle reveals three crucial psychological elements that solidify one’s place within a culture and contribute to the success of a group: safety, vulnerability, and purpose. These same elements contribute to a successful talent epicenter.
Safety: Coyle describes safety as the feeling that you belong within the culture.
Vulnerability: Coyle describes vulnerability as the ability to expose your personal weakness and ask for support. When a group collaborates against a shared struggle, members expose their weaknesses and learn to ask one another for help.
Purpose: Coyle describes purpose as the feeling that you’re part of the group for a reason. Creating a moment to clarify the meaning and impact of a group member’s presence reminds them why they contribute to the group’s cause.
Now that you’ve learned about the role that practice and motivation play in building an individual’s talent, let’s discuss how you can use this knowledge to coach and cultivate talent in others.
In this section, we’ll explore five techniques that effective, talent-building coaches use, according to Coyle: motivational language, engaging feedback, precise instructions, skill-tailored training, and personalized guidance.
Coyle explains that there’s a certain type of language that great coaches use that motivates someone to work harder and achieve more. He says that high praise like, “You’re the greatest” isn’t as effective as motivational comments that speak to hard work, effort, or perseverance—for example, “Good job,” or, “Your work is really paying off.”
This type of language motivates a student to practice and challenge themselves because it emphasizes that you value their work, not their natural skill. This helps students understand the reality of how talent is grown and motivates them to continue working at it when things get difficult—rather than giving into the defeated feeling that they just weren’t born with the necessary skills.
Motivate a Growth Mindset
In Mindset, psychologist Carol S. Dweck notes that children who are praised for being smart tend to shy away from difficult tasks because they fear failure—which threatens their identity as smart people. This reaction comes from a fixed mindset, a belief that innate abilities (like intelligence) are unchangeable. By contrast, children who are praised for their effort develop a growth mindset, a belief that you can build upon your natural abilities by working hard and challenging yourself.
In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath offer guidelines on how to coach someone through a challenge in a way that helps them avoid the fear of failure and cultivate a growth mindset:
Express high expectations and confidence: By being demanding yet reassuring, you help your student become more comfortable with challenging goals while bolstering their confidence in their ability to stretch themselves.
Give direction: By giving your student a specific high-challenge project, you prevent them from defaulting to a project that seems easier or carries a lower risk of failure.
Assure support: Assuring your student of your support expresses to her that it’s okay to ask for your help—she doesn’t need to fear what you’ll think of her if she fails or can’t accomplish the goal alone.
Coyle found that coaches who use engaging, theatrical personalities are able to connect with their students more. Their dramatic performance engages the student and makes them more interested in learning. Coyle says that this is an especially effective technique when you have to give hard, honest feedback. The student has bought into the fun, over-the-top spectacle—making the criticism part of a playful drama and easier for them to receive without defensiveness.
(Shortform note: People may not always take feedback well, but it’s a crucial part of building skill. In Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen argue that people can only achieve success by accepting and incorporating other peoples’ criticisms and direction—this is why it’s so important to use an approach that students are receptive to. This helps your student feel safe and avoid the emotional triggers that might compel them to ignore feedback they don’t like.)
Through his research, Coyle found that coaches who are masters of meaningful practice often give exacting advice in short sentences, right when it is needed—for example, “More vibrato,” “Lean into it,” or “Shoot now.”
(Shortform note: This technique may seem contradictory to Technique 2, but Coyle clarifies that succinct feedback is a useful coaching technique while the student is performing. On the other hand, theatrical feedback should take place before or after the performance.)
This type of succinct communication allows the coach to give large amounts of targeted feedback in a short period of time, condensing as much skill-building into one practice session as possible. It’s also effective because these real-time directions allow the student to notice and correct their mistakes right away.
(Shortform note: While this technique is useful for helping students realize and correct their mistakes right away, it’s important to give them succinct positive feedback, as well—this will communicate to them precisely what they should repeat or be doing more of.)
Coyle explains that different skills require the building of specific types of neural circuits. Some skills, like soccer or improv comedy, are flexible circuit skills that require improvisation and the ability to react and make decisions in different contexts. Consistent circuit skills, like figure skating or playing the violin, require precise movement, focus, and consistency of precision.
Great coaches are able to identify which circuits their students need to fire and can design lessons, practice sessions, or teaching methods that will fire the correct circuits to get their students into the development zone necessary for the skill they’re focused on.
For example, an acting coach might design an improv comedy class to develop flexible circuit skills by demanding quick reactions in rapid succession. A violin teacher might help their student master a concerto by developing consistent circuit skills, demanding the same perfect tone on each note, every time.
(Shortform note: Even if someone knows their skill well—and is knowledgeable about the training they need to continue improving—they will need a coach to continue growing. This is because it’s difficult for them to put themselves in demanding situations. A coach can push them into challenging situations that will effectively improve their skills and support them in setbacks.)
Coyle asserts that coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor—rather, excellent coaches consider the best way to tailor their guidance to the needs of each student. They identify a student’s current skill set, pinpoint the skills that need improvement, and find the most effective way to flag and correct their mistakes.
Additionally, many excellent coaches—particularly those involved in early-childhood learning—spark the impassioned motivation that will carry the student through years of meaningful practice by working to identify the best way to hook a student into loving the learning process. For example, one student may be motivated by the chance to display her paintings in her school’s art show, whereas another student is more motivated by the idea of qualifying for an after-school drawing class.
The Importance of Childhood Experience
Being introduced to a field of interest early on, and in the right way, is an important commonality among extremely talented individuals.
In Peak, Anders Ericsson describes a study at the University of Chicago in which one researcher looked at top achievers in music, swimming, tennis, mathematics, neurology, and sculpture. The study found that during their childhood, they all had the experience of being introduced to their field of interest in a fun, playful way. Their parents provided them the time, attention, and encouragement to engage with it further. Indeed, the study found that the parents themselves were likely to be highly achievement-oriented. Crucially, the parents supplemented the child’s initial curiosity-driven motivation with praise.
According to Coyle, developing talent depends on a combination of impassioned motivation and a commitment to meaningful practice. In this exercise, you’ll pinpoint your source of impassioned motivation and plan out your approach to meaningful practice.
What skill are you most interested in developing further?
What motivates you to want to develop that skill in particular? Is this motivation one that will help you commit in the long term? (For example, your motivation may be that it’s important to your family that you succeed, or you go to a highly competitive school, or someone from your neighborhood achieved success so you know you can do it, too.)
How are you currently practicing this skill? Explain how your current practice supports—or doesn’t support—the type of challenge and struggle that contributes to myelination.
What could you change about your practice to make it more meaningful, or consistently challenging in a myelination-supportive way? Recall Coyle’s four methods that contribute to meaningful practice: chunking, staying attuned to flaws, condensing, and repetition in the development zone. (For example, you might develop as a sprinter by chunking: mastering your start, then your stride and arm movement, then your finish—then speeding up each step and eventually linking them together.)